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Two Weeks with the Team

It’s been just on two weeks since my first post ever. When I last wrote, I’d been working with a Year 11 group, using a Design Thinking process to re-envisage the Leadership Structure at our school. They’d had a couple of set-backs, and for reasons including time constraints, weren’t able to go ahead with all they had planned.

We re-grouped a week and a bit ago. Chatted about real life, and how things don’t always go as planned, but that the mark of a leader is how they respond under those circumstances. Leadership speeches and voting will take place in Week 5, so mid-Week 3 they didn’t have a whole lot of time to plead their case or make major adjustments. They broke into pairs – two drafting a letter to the principal, two researching other schools, a few brainstorming ideas on the whiteboard. They left our meeting with a draft proposal, combining their ideas about leadership selection and portfolios, but crafted to fit within existing structures and titles.

“Bob”, as I’ll call him, was one of the boys leading the charge – the one who came with the original shortlist of changes they wanted. And it is in Bob I’ve seen the greatest growth and learning. He was the one who was a bit nervous when the process was opened up to all of Year 11, as he had a firm idea of what he thought should happen. He wasn’t so sure that those boys “just getting out of class” to share in initial meetings was fair. But he relaxed with the process, and could see over time the value in consulting, discussing, being inclusive and listening.

Bob has been a driving force in moving the process forward. And he was probably the most upset when it was cut short. He organized the group to meet again, had charge of the laptop and led the letter-drafting process. He forwarded the draft to a couple of key teachers for feedback. But he bounced back.

So you can imagine how shocked I was when he told me on Wednesday that he’d had second thoughts about leadership and wasn’t going to put in for captain. I wanted to shake him and say, “Wake up! We need leaders like you who care and who have initiative!” I was upset that maybe the set-backs had proven too much.

But it wasn’t that… he told me he had just been reflecting on what it meant to be a leader. And he was concerned that maybe he didn’t have what it took to take his form forward. That he had a really firm idea of where things should go, but that it wasn’t representative of the form in general. He was concerned that whilst the teachers were encouraging and saw him as leadership material, he wouldn’t really represent his classmates. And if he was worried about relationships, that would detract from a focus on his studies. So he had strong doubts about his own motives for seeking leadership.

I was sad… but felt privileged at the same time, to see that level of self-awareness in a young man of 16. Would that I had been capable of such reflection at that age! I didn’t want to push him into putting forward for captaincy, because that might only reinforce his thinking that he was the teachers’ choice… but at the same time, thought anyone capable of such reflection would be such an asset to a leadership team. So I just told him it had to be his choice, reiterated what I saw as his strengths, and reminded him that whatever the leadership team accomplished, the hope would be to leave a legacy not just for the class of 2013, but for the juniors to follow as well. And that being a leader doesn’t mean you have to be THE captain, that sharing ideas and contributing to a vision is also being a leader.

In the end, Bob and the team submitted a proposal to the principal on Thursday, with a header “From The Design Thinkers”… I didn’t ask him if he wants to be captain or not, but so admire his willingness to learn from the process and be guided by what is right for him, not by what others in positions of authority want him to do.

And again, on reflection – probably a lot of parallels in this story for us teachers – do we see ourselves as leaders, regardless of title? Do we go for a title because it seems the right thing to do? Are we guided by our core beliefs in choosing an authentic pathway for ourselves? Do we maintain the courage of our convictions and bounce back in the face of defeat? I do know Bob has given me a lot to think about in my own role…